Hans Hoefer’s magical images of a bygone Bali

This from a series of photos that the legendary Hans Hoefer took ( and manipulated, see below) in the ’70s in Bali. For more on Hans Hoefer’s story please read here.

Hans tells us: “The SX-70 polaroid camera was not considered a pro camera at the time, catering to hobby photography. Only later, sometime in the late 80s the SX 70 process and film was “elevated” by a number of artists worldwide for their works, and became better known among serious photographers and artists.

“I took that camera on assignment as a quick solution to satisfy requests for pictures from my “people subjects”. I just could pull out a picture for them creating lots of “instant” happiness all around, which in turn benefited my “other” photography.

“I discovered that I could manipulate the emulsion when I squeezed a reject picture between my fingernails during a bus ride home. As an art and design graduate I could see instantly what I could do with this. I pasted a small steel plate to the back of the camera, and made my own tools from dentist equipment.

“A particular feature of this technique was that I had only 20 minutes after each shot to do the manipulations before the pictures chemistry became fixed (like, frozen) and could not be manipulated any further. There always was a certain frenzy connected to the process. The immediacy and finality of the process has a lot in common with aquarelle in wet painting technique. You cannot correct it once done.”